Spiny

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

When a spiny creature is attacked in melee, it deals damage to the attacker. Ranged or reaching attacks ignore this counterattack, as do spells. Each spiny creature may only hurt a monster once per round.

Creatures with this trait are immune to constriction.

Monster Version

Each time anything attacks a spiny monster in melee, there is a one in three chance that the attacker will take damage. This damage ignores EV, but is reduced by AC.

Briar patches deal 5d4 damage, which is the default behavior. Cactus giants instead deal 5d8 damage with their spines.

Player Version

There are two ways for players to obtain the spiny mutation, which stack independently from each other. In both cases, spiny damage ignores EV but not AC, and grants immunity to constriction.

Quill talisman

The quill talisman gives a 40% chance to hurt attackers for 1d(2 + 6*Shapeshifting/7) damage (max. 1d8).

Demonspawn

Demonspawn may gain the spiny mutation, which has a 50% chance to hurt attackers, dealing damage based on mutation rank and experience level:

  Minimum damage: mutation_rank
  Maximum damage: (2 * XL / 3) + 3 * mutation_rank

Spiny Monsters

• P Briar patch
• C Cactus giant

History

• Prior to 0.33, spiny granted immunity to engulf.
• In 0.28, cactus giants were introduced, which deal more damage with their spines.
• Prior to 0.27, mutation rank had minimal influence on the player damage formula.
• Prior to 0.26, you could naturally find mobile spiny enemies in the Dungeon: porcupines, torturous demonspawns, and hell sentinels had them.
• Prior to 0.19, the player version did damage based only on the mutation rank.